As the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election campaign winds down, the outward manifestations of the BJP’s campaign — rallies, speeches, and governance record — have been outweighed by the party’s behind-the-scenes management of its cadre and their morale, which had been trailing in the months leading up to the polls.
Ever since the BJP’s defeat in the Karnataka Assembly polls in May this year, it was said that Madhya Pradesh would also go the same way. Apart from anti-incumbency sentiments, given 18 years of BJP rule in M.P., there was also the fact that, just like in Karnataka, the BJP government had a constructed rather than an elected majority, giving the moral high ground to the Opposition Congress.
